Omega
by AnteNomad
Summary: Sephiroth is defeated, and Meteor is destroyed, but the Planet is still dying. As the Lifestream fades, its people are divided, and nature is not set to stop.
1. Chapter 1

The rock was covered with a thin layer of dust, that crunched under their feet as they stepped from the _Highwind_'s ladder onto the cliff face. There was a slight breeze coming from the north, but the air was warm, with an odd quality that was difficult to identify, almost as if the heat was rising from the rocks themselves. It looked much like any other day, but with one major exception, that did not make itself apparent except after some examination. The omnipresent black clouds that occupied the skies around Midgar were gone. There were clouds in the sky, but one could see the sun clearly as it rose on the horizon.

"#&! piece of —" Angrily, Cid kicked the airship's ladder with his heavy boot. "First, it can't go fast enough, and now it won't go at all! Why, if I were back in Rocket Town, I —"

"Cid," came the calm, slightly gruff voice of Red XIII. Shaking his fiery red mane, he nodded in the direction of the cliff edge.

The breeze had now reversed itself, and was now coming from the south-southeast. The clouds did not seem to know this, however, and were proceeding westward, as if fleeing the morning sun. It was strange, even, to look up at the sky and not see the monster that had haunted it for so long, hovering above and waiting to destroy the very life-force of the Planet with its unearthly power. Its presence had been like an open wound in the sky, but its absence now almost left one with an empty feeling, as if something was missing.

Perhaps, it was simply the realization that the fight was over. This was the end of the line.

"I'm still not sure I understand what happened," Tifa said. A lock of her hair had come loose, and was persistently intruding itself before her face.

"I doubt anyone really does," Red XIII said. "No one alive, anyway."

"Shi't!" Barret exclaimed. "I NEVER understood any of this!"

At its edge, the cliff gave way sharply before a tremendous fall. Looking out, one could see the landscape almost to the sea. The land was barren, the soil devoid of life, something made quite striking as the morning light cast long shadows from every irregularity in the earth.

In the foreground — as it were; in truth some kilometers away — sprawled the city of Midgar. Or at least, what was left of it. Meteor itself might be gone, but its legacy would be with the Planet for ages to come. The massive plates on which the city's upper class had resided were now all collapsed at least in part, and even the immense Shinra Building rested at a precarious angle, as if it might simply topple over any minute. The entire city was in ruin.

"Oh, no," Cait Sith moaned. The mechanical creature leaned over the cliff, trying to get a better look. "It's horrible. Maybe it would have been better just to let Hojo blow it up, and get it over with." The cat-creature shook its head sadly. "All those people..."

Tifa opened her mouth to speak, but could not find anything to say, and simply placed her hand on Cait Sith's shoulder, hoping the man at the controls could feel her.

"What happened back there, anyhow?" Cid asked. "One second, I thought we was all done for, and then all the green snakey things come up, and there was that huge flash and..." he trailed off, scratching his head. "It just don't make no sense to me."

Cloud stood on the edge of the cliff, his eyes fixed on Midgar below. The destruction looked complete and indescriminate, but if he looked closely at a certain spot beside the reactor marked **05**, he thought he could see a small patch in the slums, that seemed relatively intact. Indeed, if he strained his eyes, he thought he could even see a tiny point of green. Or, perhaps it was just his imagination.

"She prayed to the Planet," he said, almost unconsciously. "It gave us its answer."

"It's not over yet," Red XIII declared. "Look."

The eight Mako reactors that had been positioned radially around the city, had not been spared from the ravages of Meteor. However, the massive towers which drew out the Mako energy from within the Planet were still basically intact. And, when they looked closely, they could detect a slight ripple in the air above the towers, and a pale, greenish smoke rising toward the sky. Even the Sector 1 reactor, which was all but completely destroyed, was spilling its contents up into the atmosphere.

"They're still functioning!" Tifa exclaimed.

Cait Sith shook his head. "The reactors are ruined. But once you make a path for the energy to escape, you can't close it again. Not until everything is gone."

"The Lifestream..." Cloud said. The very lifeblood of the planet was evaporating away before their eyes. "We defeated Sephiroth. Meteor's been stopped. But the Planet is still in danger."

"Well, what do we do then?" Barret demanded.

Red XIII shook his head. "There's nothing we can do. It's already too late."

They all looked out at the city, which even in its death seemed to vow to take the Planet with it. The sun, in its ascent, disappeared behind one of the advancing clouds. And it started to rain.

**OMEGA**

a FINAL FANTASY VII Fan Fiction

_FINAL FANTASY VII and all corresponding characters and locations are copyright © 1997 Square. All rights reserved. This is a fictional, unofficial story created soley for entertainment purposes; no profit is made through use of aforementioned items — at least, not by the authour or with the authour's knowledge. Duplication of this work or any other work by this authour without the authour's permission or without giving said authour due credit will seriously annoy him. This text applies whether you read it or not. All your base are belong to us._


	2. Chapter 2

_**Seven Years Later**_

A harsh wind blew through the craggy peaks of Mount Nibel, creating an eerie howl that seemed to emanate from the peaks themselves. The sky was overcast; it was early afternoon, but the landscape was grey as twilight. It was a scene of utter desolation; there was not so much as a single weed visible on the entire mountainside. A light snow was falling, highlighting the rock face with the only thing approaching color that could be found.

A treacherous, winding path led up the side of the mountain, following an irregular, often nonsensical path toward an invisible destination. Along this path trudged a group of four silent forms, moving single file into the foreboding forest of peaks. Not a one of them spoke a word, or deviated their gaze from the path ahead, as they carefully navigated their course. Their pace was slow and measured, keenly aware of the dangers of a missed step or an unstable foothold. The path was irregular in width and angle, and the ground was studded with thorn-like outcroppings and very far below.

Up ahead lay the dark, gaping maw of a natural cave — as natural, at least, as anything was in these mountains. Though not the travelers' destination, this did offer their first chance at shelter from the wind and the snow, since embarking on this climb, many hours before. They took note of its presence with silence; however, their pace did quicken slightly over the last few meters to its entrance.

Inside, the cave looked just as strange as the mountain itself. Spindly stalactites seemed to twist about each other as if they possessed a mind of their own, and the walls almost seemed to glow when one didn't look directly at them. A faint, ethereal wailing permeated the caves, at once taunting a listener's ears with its transience and plaguing them with its angst.

"Phew!" exclaimed one of the four, throwing off his gloves and rubbing his hands together madly. "It's WAY too cold out there! I mean, it's still summer, right?"

"It's getting colder everywhere," said another. "Incredible how warm it is in here, though. The Mako fountain must not have completely dried up yet."

"How far to the reactor, doc?" asked the leader, throwing his pack onto the floor and sitting down to rest on one of the less sharp rocks.

"There's still quite a bit of climbing ahead of us," said the second man. "This is rather the long route, but it was important that we pass through these caves."

"Here's what I don't get," said the first. "What's _she_ here for?" I mean, we all heard this mountain was crawling with monsters, but I haven't seen a single one since we got to this crazy place. We'd be no worse off without her, and we could've only had to split the money _three_ ways!"

"Good point," the leader nodded, looking at the fourth figure in their group. She stood tall and without any traveling pack, clad in a worn uniform of deep blue damage-resistant fabric and a pair of large metal shoulder-guards. Her arms were bare save for a pair of elbow-guards heavy and studded-leather gloves. Her brown hair was secured in a single tail behind her, save for a single lock which ran down the right side of her face, and strapped to her back was a tremendous, and well-used, buster sword. "So what do you have to say for yourself?" the leader demanded. "You plan on earning your pay for this trip, or are we just supposed to be grateful for the pleasure of your company?"

"I can't fight the monsters if they don't show up," she replied cooly. "Unless you want me to go off looking for them."

"Don't get smart with us, girl," said the leader.

"I didn't ask for this job," she reminded him. "You hired me."

"Hey, how do we know she's really who she says she is?" asked the first man. "Since when did they let girls into SOLDIER, anyhow?"

"Can't you see her eyes?" asked the second. "Only people who have been infused with Mako have that glow. She _must_ have been in SOLDIER."

"Yeah; well, that's her story."

"Me, I don't care what her story is," said the leader. "I care that we hired her to do a job here, so that job had better get done." He glared at her. "You hear that? If you want your pay, you have to _earn_ it."

"Fine," she said.

The leader nodded for a moment, still keeping her in his gaze. "Okay, let's keep moving."

"The Mako fountain should be just ahead," said the second man.

They moved through the cave and into an opening in which stood a formation of rock shaped like a rough pedestal, and set at its top was a large, rough crystalline structure which emitted a pale green glow. A faint beam of light seemed to point upwards toward the clouded sky.

"This it?" asked the leader.

The second man produced a small instrument which gave off a soft clicking noise. "There's definitely a concentration of Mako here," he said. "But the levels aren't nearly high enough to account for the geological formations we've been observing."

"So what's that mean?" asked the first man.

"I'm not sure yet," said the second man. "I'd like to examine the reactor before I call it a theory."

"Then let's go," said the leader.

They left the cave and returned to the chill mountain air and narrow walks of the open mountainside. They trudged for an uncertain time along a thin, winding path with the face of Mount Nibel on one side, and open air on the other. Eventually, they could see up ahead that the path widened outward into an enclosed plateau, surrounded on nearly all sides by the mountain's climbing peaks. Set upon this plateau, sheltered by these natural walls, there stood a large metal construction, a building resembling a massive wood-burning stove. It sat precariously at the lip of the plateau, as if it could topple over any minute, regardless that the very same foundation had held it in place for years. Its only entrance was elevated some meters above the ground, accessible by a rising stairway which looked to be perhaps the sturdiest piece of the building. At the very top of the building, a faint green mist rose from a metal chimney.

"Here we are," said the leader as they reached the foot of the stairs.

"The Mako pool should be just inside that door," said the second man.

"So what're we waiting for?" asked the first.

"Nothing at all," said the leader. The four started up the stairs, but the woman paused a moment, frowning as if she had just sensed something. None of the others took any notice.

The solid metal door grated slightly as it sprung open, and they passed through onto a catwalk which led across a large, hollow room. Far below them lay a pool of pale green fluid, giving off a pale glow which cast the entire room in a stark, eerie light.

For a moment, the three men were caught by the strangely hypnotic ripples of the pool beneath them, while the woman looked on, her expression unchanged. The leader was the first to speak. "Well, doc," he said, "There's your Mako pool. It's your show."

The second man nodded, checking his instrument. "Mako readings remain consistent with those at the reactor's construction," he said. "No change whatsoever."

"What's that mean?" asked the first man.

"Mako levels around the world have been dropping steadily for the past few years," the second man replied. "But in here, they're exactly the same. The reactors must be drawing in Mako from the surrounding environment to compensate as overall levels decrease."

The woman glanced over the railing and into the sea of Mako below. There was something captivating about the odd glow which emanated from deep within; but she was concerned less with the Mako itself than with a...feeling which seemed to be welling up beneath the surface.

"_Just like you —"_

An image flashed before her eyes, a sensation which passed so quickly she could not quite identify it. But for an instant, she was certain she had seen a man with flowing hair and a long, black cape beneath the surface of the water. The image was gone now, but the feeling still floated at the edge of her senses.

"You comin'?"

She glanced up to see that the three men were moving on to the door on the opposite side of the catwalk. Silently, she followed.

The door at the opposite end of the catwalk uttered a deep grating sound as it slid open, to reveal another room dominated by large, cylindrical metal chambers the size of a phone booth, arrayed in rows that rose along with a flight of stairs towards another door at the other side of the room. A metal plate was located above this door, and the letters **J E N O V A** had been engraved on its face.

There was a feeling within the woman as she stepped inside, a twisting in her gut and a strange compulsion to act, though she did not know what it was she wanted to do. There was a power here, she felt; and it took her a moment to realize that it did not emanate from the creature that had been kept behind that door.

She drew her sword.

"_This_ ain't the control room," said the first man.

"It must be on another level," said the second, looking around in astonishment. "But this is amazing. It looks like part of the reactor's original design, but I've never seen anything like this in any other Mako facility."

"What is it?" asked the leader.

The second man shook his head. "I don't know. Those look almost like some kind of cryogenic tanks, but I can't imagine why someone could want so many inside a reactor." He frowned. "Unless...Oh, my." When he looked back towards the leader, his face looked slightly pale. "If someone was going to infuse a life-form's genome with Mako, there wouldn't be a more convenient place to do it."

"What th' hell are you on about now?" asked the first man.

"Genetic engineering," the second man said. "Infusing Mako into living organisms. Prolonged exposure has been known to produce mutation, to the point where the original lifeform is completely unrecognizable." He waved back at the rows of vats. "This reactor was run completely by automation, and is so far out of the way that no one could ever stumble upon these experiments."

The leader frowned. "That explain why they're all empty?"

"What?" The second man looked more closely at the chambers. Indeed, nothing was visible through the rectangular glass windows placed on the front of each one. "...Well, I suppose that the project could have been terminated, and the specimens taken elsewhere..."

The woman, for her part, was getting tired of the men's failure to grasp the nature of their most immediate problem. "They're not _all_ empty," she said, nodding towards one chamber towards the top of the stairs. Although the glass plate had frosted over, there could be seen inside clear signs that something was pounding against the glass. Not least the way in which the entire chamber was beginning to shake from the stress being put on it by the creature inside.

Before any of the three men knew what to make of the sight, the chamber burst open, splitting into two halves amid a rush of escaping supercooled gas; and standing inside, now free, was a ferocious and very angry-looking beast. Its body proportions indicated that it could have once been human, but this was the only indication. Its body was covered in some cross between scales and an exoskeleton, a blue-grey shell that ran from head to toe. Razor-sharp spikes ran along its arms, legs, and even its head, which was the most deformed. Its teeth, equally sharp and vicious, were bared as well.

_Return to me —_ it wasn't so much a voice as a thought that forced itself into her mind as she and the creature stared at each other across the room, a thought that was certainly not her own. _You can't escape they'll always be holding your strings —_

"What th' hell is _that_!" exclaimed the first man, backing away.

_I can set you free_

The creature leaped down towards them, poised to strike; but she was ready. Waves of golden light began to emanate from about her feet, and then a tremendous bolt of lightning stabbed down from the ceiling and impaled the creature in midair, turning its descent into an uncontrolled collapse. It crashed to the ground and scurried to the opposite wall, as far away from her as it could. There, it just stared at her, eyes clouded with mad fury.

_You know you're no different —_

_I'll always be with you —_

_Just like them_

With a high-pitched roar, the creature leaped at her once again. Without giving any ground, she took her sword in both hands and swung it in a wide arc with all her strength. The blade caught the creature in the side; and though it was not sliced completely in half by the counterstrike, it came close. The creature was knocked off to the side, and landed limp on the floor a short meter away. However, it did not get up this time, or move at all; its body began to assume a reddish glow, then faded into nothing as an eerie hissing sound filled the room. As the noise subsided and the last signs crimson silhouette vanished from existence, the regular noises of the old machinery did their best to reassert themselves and provide an air of normalcy to the room once more.

The three men who had witnessed the confrontation were left without words for a considerable pause.

"Daaamn," uttered the first man at length, eyes alternating between the spot where the monster had died and the woman who had had slain it, now with her buster sword slung once again behind her back. "Okay, maybe yer worth splitting th' money four ways after all."

"I'm flattered," she said, tone implying very much the opposite. "Can we get on with this now? I've got better places to be."


	3. Chapter 3

No terrain existed but flat, parched desert for miles in every direction, so the base's occupants had seen the approaching buggy for quite some time. Most of them hadn't paid it much heed, despite the rarity of traffic through the area and the rumors that had surrounded a possible visit; all of them had their own business to deal with.

Their operation would be easy to miss from a distance. Its most visible feature was the twenty-foot skeletal tower that formed its centerpiece, and this sat in the middle of a ten-foot pit, where all the activity was. The dozen men who worked at the pit, with the intention of digging it still deeper, resided in a cluster of tents nearby; the original fabric had been a camouflage green – more than a little pointless given the lifeless surroundings, but weather had long since beaten the color out of them anyway.

The sun was high in the sky and beat down hard, but the air itself was cold. This disconnect was typical of late, and a bit disconcerting, but it made the work easier, and denied the men an excuse for more frequent breaks.

One man was seated in the open mess tent, drinking a package-made brew and watching the buggy approach. He had a long face with blond hair and a goatee, and sported a faint beard that spoke to a disinterest in shaving; his grimy work clothes, and person in general, moreover pointed to someone who had neither showered in quite some time nor had a reason to.

As the buggy neared his location, he tossed the rest of his drink into the trash and walked out to the perimeter of the compound.

"You the guys?" he asked, as the buggy ground to a halt and its occupants dismounted. The question was mostly rhetorical; the two were as close to archetypal mercenaries as one could get. The driver, a huge dark-skinned man with a goatee and a shotgun grafted onto his right arm, stole most of the attention, but his companion didn't look like any slouch either. He wore what appeared to be a blue SOLDIER jumpsuit under a black leather jacket with heavy-duty shoulder-guards, but which was missing its right sleeve. The giant sword he retrieved from the car and expertly slung behind his back was fairly impressive too.

"'Sright," said the first man. "You Graves?"

He nodded. "Do I get to know _your_ names now?"

"What do you have for us?" asked the second man. Graves just folded his arms.

"I'm Barret, he's Cloud," said the first man. "Now whadda you got?"

Graves nodded. "Come on."

He led them across the compound to a closed tent, in which there was a bank of secondhand computer displays. "Shinra didn't give us the coordinates when they handed out this contract," he said, "so we found the location with rumors, mostly. But we managed to confirm it with sonar." He poked a series of commands into a keyboard, and a false-3D graphic appeared on one of the screens, showing what looked like a fuzzy tree under the ground, with some . "Average Mako depth in this area is 2-3 miles," he said. "Here it comes within 100 feet of the surface. We just finished a more detailed sweep."

A clearer image appeared. What had looked to be a tree now appeared as a series of tendrils that rose toward the surface, then frayed apart to create a sort of plateau, surrounding an oval orb.

"What's the scale on that?" Cloud asked.

"That thing in the middle?" Graves pointed at the orb. "That's about 10 feet, end to end. Maybe 12."

The other two men looked at each other. "Looks familiar, don't it?" Barret asked. And indeed, Cloud had seen something quite like it before. Only then, the orb had been suspended well above the ground.

"...How's your excavation going?" asked Cloud.

"Should take another week or so."

"'Scuse me?" asked Barret. "Th' only reason we came out here was 'cause you said you was almost finished!"

Graves shrugged. "Sorry," he said, his tone suggesting that he wasn't. "Guess you got the wrong memo."

"Hey," said Cloud. "We're here on the authority of the President."

"Yeah?" asked Graves. "Me too. I got a contract. And it doesn't say anything about special executive audits, or whatever the crap you're doing here."

Cloud sighed. "Look, we don't care about your schedule. We just came to see what you'd learned about the artifact. Just tell us, and we won't cause any trouble."

Graves frowned at him for a minute. "...Fine," he said. "Well, anyway, we _would_ have been done by now, if things were what they oughtta be." He pointed to the display. "On sonar, this looks exactly like a huge mother lode of Materia, right? Well, not quite."

He led them to another tent, containing an examination table littered with fragments of an orangish glassy substance. "We got these from the periphery while we were excavating around the object." He picked one of the fragments, and crushed it one-handed. "I'm no expert," he said, "but I've never seen Materia that's this easy to break."

Cloud and Barret looked at the fragments. They didn't have any of the ethereal glow Materia usually gave off, but there did seem to be something inside them – tendrils of a darker substance, looking almost like arteries. That looked familiar too.

"So you're worried that big thing in the middle'll fall apart too?" Barret asked.

"Not taking any chances," said Graves.

"Can we see it?" asked Cloud. Barret frowned at him.

Graves shrugged. "I guess. Nothing to see, though."

"Hey, boss!" called a voice from outside.

"Yeah!" Graves yelled back. He took glanced at Cloud and Barret. "Well, that's it." And he stepped out of the tent.

"Damn," said Barret. "Well, this was a total waste of time."

Cloud, however, was still looking at the fragments on the table. "It died," he said. "Just like everywhere is..." There was a flash of...something, and he shook his head, feeling slightly dizzy all of a sudden.

"Yo, you alright?" Barret asked.

"..." Cloud looked through the tent window at the excavation site. "...Weapon," he said. "Monsters protecting the Planet. But why here...?" Frowning, he turned towards the exit.

"Hey?" Barret followed Cloud out of the tent. "Whaddya doing?"

Ignoring him, Cloud picked up a climbing harness and made his way down into the pit. The workers gave him a few odd looks, which he also ignored.

"Yo, Cloud!" Barret called exasperatedly. Cloud stopped just short of the tower to look back at him. Barret was shaking his head. "She ain't down there, man."

Cloud turned away and stepped into the tower's structure, fastening the harness to one of the lines that descended from its peak into the tunnel beneath it. Then he slid down into the pit.

The descent wasn't entirely even; Cloud's feet brushed against the wall now and again, but there wasn't anything that could serve as a solid purchase. The tunnel wasn't lit, either; though a slight glow below him told him at least that should change when he reached the bottom. He passed one other man who was on his way up using a separate line; the man looked at him, but Cloud couldn't see his expression behind the glare of the flashlight attached to his helmet.

The man-made cavern he descended into was donut-shaped, averaging about seven feet wide and circling around a five-foot column. Here and there, fragments of broken crystal protruded from the outer walls, probably tips of the subterranean tendrils and the sources from which the samples on the surface had come. There were three men carefully digging out around the central object with fairly small picks and hammers; some bigger ones lay by the outer walls unused. A pair of portable lights had been attached to the outer wall on either side.

Cloud circled around that central column. The object enclosed within was still hidden behind the packed earth, but for half a second Cloud caught a glimpse of a large, perfectly smooth oval, with a human silhouette suspended inside.

_That was how it started —_

He shook his head. There _was_ something here, he thought, and he was sure that on some level, he knew what it was.

He caught a flash of motion off to his left. Turning, he saw a fragment of the Materia tendrils, which appeared to have just shed a jagged piece about the size of his thumb; this lay on the ground by his foot. And as Cloud watched it, he was half-convinced it maintained a faint glow. Kneeling, he picked it up.

It was the same orangish color as the fragments in the tent, and had the same dark tendrils as well. But the tendrils deemed to be moving, just a little – drifting within the fragment. And the fragment itself felt less sharp than it should, as if it were made of rubber.

And suddenly, the room was flooded with brilliant white light. Cloud looked around, but none of the others seemed to notice the change at all. It took him a moment to realize that the shard of Materia in his hand was getting warmer; looking down, he saw the dark tendrils within glow more brightly; then the entire shard began to morph, re-forming into a perfect sphere.

_This isn't the way_

Cloud's head was starting to hurt, and his ears were ringing. It was a sensation he hadn't felt in years, and wasn't keen on going through again.

_Still jumping at shadows —_

As Cloud watched, the materia passed straight through his hand, falling to the ground where it splattered. A second later, it was solid once more, but reduced a patch of teardrop-sized splinters. The light had faded to its previous level.

_This is the end_

The cavern shuddered, and Cloud felt the ground give way a bit under his feet. The workers all yelped, and then just stared in disbelief as the central column they had been painstakingly chipping away – along with large sections of the outer wall – collapsed as if part of a mudslide. The materia contained within came flowing out, drying and cracking even as it did and leaving all of them knee-deep in a substance that looked like broken glass and felt like dried leaves.

A moment later, Graves appeared coming down through the tunnel. When he reached bottom, for several seconds he just stared in disbelief. "Ww—" was his first attempt at communication. "...What the hell did you _do_?"

"We didn't do anything!" one of the workers protested. "The whole thing just fell apart!"

"I _told_ you how fragile the thing was!" Graves snapped, singling out the poor man who had spoke. "The hell am I supposed to tell Shinra! And for sure, none of you are getting paid for this now!"

This spurred another round of protests from the men. Cloud took the opportunity to exit, climbing up another one of the lines as the argument went on below him.

When he reached the surface, Barret was waiting by the base of the tower. The sounds of yelling could be heard even up there, if not the actual words. "What's goin' on down there?" he asked, giving Cloud a suspicious look. "You blow somethin' up again?"

"Let's go," Cloud said, walking past him towards the buggy. "You were right. There's nothing here."


	4. Chapter 4

There was a rough jolt as the Gelnika touched down, making a suitable end for a flight that had never offered much in the way of comfort. The airship was converted from one of Shinra's old military cargo models, and its background showed in the amount of noise and vibration the propellors sent through the passenger cabin.

"_Please do not remove your seatbelts until the vehicle has come to a complete stop and 'Fasten seat belt' light has been shut off,"_ said the copilot's voice over the intercom. _"On your departure, please remember to have your papers ready or proceed directly to Customs & Registration at the end of the landing field. On behalf of Shinra Aviation Division, thank you for your patronage, and welcome to Junon."_

The airship rolled to a halt, and the dozen or so passengers got up to retrieve their overhead baggage and head down the exit stairs onto the airstrip. Cloud was one of the last to get off; by the time he did, Barret was already in back waiting for his gun-arm to be unloaded.

There were a half-dozen airships lined up along the landing field – two others like the one he had just got off, three smaller, sleeker, newer passenger models, and a tilt-rotor VTOL craft that resembled a smaller version of the _Highwind_. Opposite them was the terminal building, built over the old Shinra command center that had overlooked the airstrip. Above that now towered the new Shinra Executive Tower, which held the new corporate headquarters. And their next destination.

"You ready?" asked Barret, who had retrieved his baggage. For the moment, he still wore his robot hand, as the Shinra people were a bit touchy about firearms.

One of the ground crew was just unloading the case that held Cloud's sword. Picking it up, he nodded.

"Man, can't believe we're back already," said Barret, as they started walking toward the terminal. "These trips seem like they're gettin' shorter and shorter." He gave Cloud a sideways glance. "Not for you, though, from what I hear."

"Something you wanna say?" asked Cloud, not looking at him.

Barret shrugged. "Ain't my business. Jus' hope you know what you're doing."

Cloud hesitated; his brain froze in the way it usually did when he thought too hard about anything he was doing. "...Yeah," he said, a bit ruefully.

**–** - I - **–**

"Mr. Strife!" said the Chairman's secretary as Cloud and Barret stepped off the elevator and into the reception room. "You're back already?"

"Things kind of fell apart," Cloud replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," she said. Cloud could never figure out if she was being sincere or not. "The Chairman was notified you were on your way up. You can go right in."

Cloud nodded, and stepped through the ornate automatic door into the office.

It wasn't as extravagant as President Shinra's old office, but it was quite nice. The walls were marble, and the floor was polished wood in an intricate pattern that showed Wutai craftsmanship. There were photographs of shiny buildings, shiny airships, and important-looking people lining the walls, all of which had probably been taken within the last year. Some exotic plants and sculptures had been put in for variety, spaced out so the room still gave a tremendous sense of open space. The Chairman's desk had a built-in computer terminal, of course, and was partly glass; some more pictures sat on top of it, facing away from the doors, along with what appeared to be a plush kitten. And the far wall was composed entirely of panoramic windows that offered a view of Junon looking out over the sea. The Chairman himself was looking out these windows as they came in.

"Hey, guys," he said, turning. "Been a while, Barret. How's Marlene?"

"Can it, Reeve," Barret said. "Let's just do this."

Reeve raised his eyebrows. "What's with him?" he asked Cloud, who just shrugged. "...Well, anyway. I read the wire from the excavation site; sounds like there's not much left to examine."

"The formation collapsed," said Cloud. "It was basically dead anyway. Almost."

Reeve frowned. "Almost? Did you see something?"

Cloud's eyes unfocused for a moment. "...I don't know."

"My people did confirm the formation looked a lot like that one in the Northern Crater, where Sephiroth's body wound up." Reeve nodded to one of the reports on his desk. "That one fell apart, too."

"When I gave him the Black Materia," Cloud agreed. "But all that was absorbed back into the Lifestream. This time, it just kind of shattered."

"Plus, I didn't see no Black Materia," said Barret. "But yo, are you sayin' Sephiroth was down there? 'Cause if we have to kill that guy _again_, I'm gonna—"

"Not Sephiroth," said Cloud. "Something else. Something..." He shook his head. "I can't quite place it. But it feels familiar."

"Yeah, well you've been all through the Lifestream yourself, haven't you?" asked Reeve. "I can imagine it'd be a bit jumbled." He picked up the report, flipping through the pages of charts and extremely dense text. "Our research people say...where is it? ...Here. There's a theory that formations like that occur around strong concentrations of individual will. Something the Lifestream can't destroy or absorb, but wants to protect itself from. That would make sense for Sephiroth, but if this is the place where that Weapon was..." He shook his head. "Why would the Planet need to protect itself from something it created?"

"Man, all Weapon ever did was trash the place up," said Barret. "What's that got to do with protectin' the Planet, anyhow?"

"You used to blow up buildings to protect the planet," Reeve pointed out. "Two of the locations Weapon attacked were Junon and Midgar, and both had Mako reactors. Still, it feels like we're missing something."

Cloud shook his head. "We're nowhere."

"Yeah," Reeve agreed. "And I'm worried we might be running out of time."

Cloud didn't disagree. For the past seven years, the summers had been getting milder and the winters harsher, and any illusion that stopping Meteor had saved the Planet was gone. People still went about their lives, and tried to cope as best they could, but the only real question was how much longer they could go on without being overwhelmed by the world dying around them.

One of the files that lay open on Reeve's desk caught his eye. "Is that what I think it is?"

"What?" Reeve followed his glance. "Oh. That's Midgar reconstruction plan 12-5. The latest revision. We're leaking it to the press tomorrow."

"Seriously?" asked Barret. "You still think you're gonna rebuild Midgar?"

"No, but if we leak an update every few months, it keeps Mayor Patton off my back." Reeve shrugged. "You know, the census came in. Kalm's population went up 1270 percent since Meteor. And those are the official numbers; who knows how many there are in the slums." He nodded at an aerial photo of the Junon cityscape that hung on his wall. "I mean, people talk about how Junon's quadrupled its urban area over the past 7 years, but our population hasn't gone up more than 300 percent."

"Yeah," said Barret. "You're just livin' it up more. Like this office. An' this whole damn building."

"It's all about appearances," Reeve replied. "It takes a lot to keep investor confidence when you lose half your board of directors and your whole business model all in one weekend. The shiny surface is what keeps them from noticing how massively we're in debt."

"The 18 hours of power probably help, too," Barret said.

Reeve sighed. "Oh, come on. You know we shut down extraction on all Mako reactors right after Meteor. But there's no way to stop at least some energy coming out; we've tried collapsing the conduits, disconnecting the link-ups, and every kind of sealing magic we've got. Plus, I've got a whole corporate division working on the problem. But as long as that energy _is_ coming out, we might as well use it to keep the lights on."

Barret folded his arms, just glaring at him.

"You know there are people saying passive collection isn't enough," said Reeve. "That we should be extracting Mako just like before, to build up our energy reserves before the Lifestream completely dries out. You can't underestimate people's desire for everything to be like normal. People can get their heads around something like rolling blackouts a lot more than something like the Planet dying all around them. Now, 7 years ago, I promised to keep Shinra together so I could use our resources to find a solution to this; and I can't do that if I don't keep the money flowing in."

"Yeah," said Barret. "Ain't you the noblest ol' hoity-toity there ever was."

"At least I'm trying," said Reeve. "You're, what, back at Corel, picking up at the mine where you left off however-many years ago?" He shook his head, raising a hand to his temple. "You say I was trying to make this place another Midgar. Well, okay. But I want this to be a better one, like Midgar _should_ have been. That's my goal. Do you even _have_ one anymore?"

"Who goes runnin' all over the Planet every time you call with a new lead?" asked Barret. "Not my fault if the calls ain't been comin' much lately."

Reeve slumped. "Look. We've got to accept the possibility that there just isn't anything to be done. Except that's the one thing we can't do, because that means we're all dead. Us, the Planet, everything. So people find their ways of dealin' with it. Some of 'em go on like nothing's wrong. I find ways to get their money so we can research our way out of this. You pretend to live your life while you're waiting for the phone to ring." He nodded to Cloud. "Cloud does whatever the hell he does. Which way's better? Does it matter? In the end, we're all in the same boat, and it's sinkin' fast."

Barret finally looked down at the floor, glowering. The room was silent for a while, until Reeve's intercom beeped. _"Mr. Chairman?"_ asked his secretary. _"The delegation from MagiTek is here for you."_

"Thank you, Madeline," Reeve replied, then stood. "...Well. Maybe we'll still get something from the samples."

"You know our numbers," said Cloud.

**–** - I - **–**

"Y'ever wonder what would've happened if Meteor'd fell?" asked Barret, as they stepped off the elevator into the tower's main lobby.

"Everyone would have died," said Cloud. "Jenova would have corrupted the Lifestream, and Sephiroth would have become all-powerful."

"...Yeah," said Barret. "Okay, so that would'a been bad. But everyone's dyin' _now_. Kinda makes you wonder what the point of it all was, y'know?"

"So you think it's a lost cause, too," said Cloud.

"Man, it's a _Planet_," said Barret. "And one thing I know is, it's a lot easier to kill somethin' than to heal it. For healin', you gotta know all kinds of medicine and shit. For killing —" He shrugged. "You just gotta wait."

"Then why _do_ you keep going on these missions?" Cloud asked.

"What else am I gonna do?" he asked. "No Planet, no future." He paused. "Plus, the pay's alright."

"Mm," Cloud said, indicating his level of interest in the conversation had sunk too low to continue it.

"So, we're goin' back home now, right?" asked Barret, as they neared the exit. "See the family?" Cloud didn't answer, presenting his ID to the clerk at the holding desk and retrieving their baggage. "Hey, you _are_ comin', right?"

Cloud glanced at him, then started toward the revolving door that led out to the plaza. "Let's go."

As they departed, a man dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, who was seated on one of the couches closed the newspaper he had been holding and stood, folding it under his arm and heading for the exit himself, adjusting the earpiece of his PHS transmitter.

"They're out," he said.


	5. Chapter 5

They took the buggy to the edge of Kalm proper, where the shantytown that had sprung up after Meteor and was gradually being built into a legitimate urban area gave way to the city center that had once been a sleepy country town. Since cars had been banned from downtown Kalm, they couldn't have driven any farther if they wanted to; all the marked parking areas were taken, so Cloud just parked the car in the most out-of-the-way open space available.

"Jus' like last time," said Barret. "I'm tellin' you, man, it's like the Midgar slums all over again."

"Here," Cloud said, tossing Barret the keys to the buggy. With no more delay, he headed towards a motorcycle that was chained to a sign at the edge of a parking zone.

"Huh?" Barret asked, looking at the keys and then at Cloud in confusion. "—Oh, come on, man! Where're you going? We're right here!"

"I just have to do something," Cloud said, unlocking the motorcycle and getting on. "I'll be in later."

He gunned the motorcycle's engine, which protested a couple times before turning over, and drove off down the road that led back out of the town. Barret watched him go, shook his head, and headed for the business district.

For most purposes, the broad, unpaved square framed by sturdy but unsightly buildings had become the real center of town. Built up entirely since Meteor, the district had at least the pretense of organization — which, Barret had to admit, put it ahead of anywhere in the old Midgar slums. The buildings, reaching two or three stories and made with brick instead of the shantytown's predominant sheet-metal siding, bore neon signs and professional trappings, although they had clearly been constructed in haste and were already falling into disrepair. The center of the square was occupied by a rough, slightly abstract wrought-iron monument depicting Meteor's descent onto Midgar; it had been dedicated to all those who had died in the destruction, but the plaque that explained this had since been stolen.

Barret weaved his way through the mass of shoppers, beggars and parked vehicles to the building marked **7th Heaven**. He'd missed the noontime crowd, so the inside was almost completely deserted, save a pair of men eating hamburgers and another man passed out in the corner. Barret was pretty sure the latter man had been in the same spot the last time he had visited. A TV on the wall behind the bar was showing a news report about some new railroad line.

Two women were behind the bar; one of them was using her thumb to mark her place in a well-worn book while watching the news with a bored expression. When she saw Barret, though, she abandoned both book and TV immediately.

"Hey!" she said, jumping to her feet. "I didn't think you'd be here already."

"You kiddin'?" asked Barret. "I ain't missed one o' Marlene's birthdays yet, have I?"

"_That_'s not for another two weeks," she said. "You could say you missed _me_, you know."

"Yeah," Barret said, shrugging noncommittally. "I mean, that too."

Tifa sighed at him in amused faux-frustration. Though older, she didn't look much different than she had while tending bar at the original 7th Heaven, providing cover for AVALANCHE. She seemed to be growing her hair out again since Barret had last seen her; it now reached almost to the small of her back. She was wearing a sleeveless tan leather top with black jeans; the green ribbon tied around her right upper arm was losing its color and becoming a bit frayed at the edges.

"Lexi, I'm gonna step out early," she said to the other woman. "Will you be okay here?"

"Yeah," said Lexi indifferently. "Can you get Rod out, though? It's your turn."

"Sure." Tifa retrieved a jacket that matched her jeans from the wall rack. "Help me with this?" she asked Barret, nodding to the passed-out man. Crossing the room, she shook him awake with one hand and pulled out the chair from under him with the other, as Barret grabbed his jacket and hustled him to the door. "Time to go, Rod," she said cheerfully as he tried to get his bearings, nodding for Barret to release him and then gently shoving him out the door. "See you tomorrow."

Then she turned back to Barret, as Rod melted off into the crowd. "So. He's not with you."

Barret shook his head. "Took off on his bike. Said he'd be back later, though."

"Yeah," she said, sighing. It took her a few seconds to ride out the train of thought this had set her on. "...Well, Marlene will be in school for another hour or two. You eaten anything? Everything here's just gonna be reheated from the lunch hour, but I've got some stuff at the house."

"Now that you mention it, I _am_ kinda hungry," Barret said. Tifa, who was securing her hair at about shoulder-level with an elastic band she'd retrieved from her jacket, led the way back towards the center city.

"So how've you been, Barret?" she asked.

Barret shrugged. "Aw, y'know, th' same. You?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "We got a new truck a few months back. Not _new_ new, but...you know. It's already broken down once or twice, but it's working okay now."

They walked in silence for a while. "...So how're the kids doin'?" Barret asked.

"Good," said Tifa. "Marlene was runner-up in her grade's art competition. Her painting's on display at the school."

"Yeah?" Barret said. "Marlene, an artist? Whaddya know."

"She's been doing little sketches for years," Tifa said. "Finally talked her into submitting something."

"Huh." They were coming up on the auto barricades that led into the old city; a pair of kids whom Barret didn't recognize were playing some game that seemed to involve hopping onto and off the barricades as quickly as they could. "...Damn," he said, stopping and shaking his head. Tifa stopped too, looking at him quizzically. "Every time I come back here, it's...I'm thinkin' I know th' place, but then everything's somehtin' new, y'know? So it's Marlene's home 'n all, but I don't know nuthin' about it. It's gettin' like I don't know Marlene either."

"Well, of course," said Tifa. "Barret, I know you're not happy seeing her just two or three times a year. I don't understand why you won't just take her to Corel."

"Well—" Barret shrugged. "Y'know. I mean, that wouldn't be no good for her; I'm workin' in the mines all day, an'—"

"Yeah, yeah," Tifa interrupted. He'd given her that excuse before.

"No, for real," he said, as they started walking again. "Anyway, she knows you way better'n me by now, an' here's where she grew up. Corel ain't no place to raise a family."

"And this is?" asked Tifa.

The old city didn't seem too different from the way it had been before Meteor. The many more vagrants begging for gil were the primary difference, and the serene atmosphere that the city's name still wistfully implied was ruined by the mass of cheaply built buildings that had risen to replace the countryside, crowding around the town's former edge. Against all this, the cluster of simple two-story country houses seemed more than a little incongruous; the soot that had tarnished their formerly white stucco exteriors testified to the futility of maintaining the enclave's atmosphere.

The town's small Mako reactor still stood in the center square, but had ceased to function; in the distance, black smoke rose from the city's new coal plant, making the sky as black as it had ever been before Meteor.

"—Hey, so." He started talking before he knew what he was going to say, mostly looking for something to take his mind off the town. Tifa looked back at him as she unlocked the door to her house, and he went with the first thing to come to mind. "Look, uh...about Cloud." Tifa's eyes flicked away, and he immediately backtracked. "Nah, nevermind. It's none of my business."

Tifa unlocked the door, and they went in. The house was spartan, unremarkable but homey: the living room was dominated by two couches by the window that looked like they fit together even though they didn't match; they were set at right angles, around a simple, sturdy wooden coffee table. Partitions that had once included sliding doors separated these from a dining table with six chairs, and from the kitchen on the other side of that. A TV was propped against the wall, below the broken mounts that had been fitted to hold it. The TV was also broken, and sat with screen facing the wall; a radio was balanced on top of it.

"How was he?" Tifa asked, proceeding to the kitchen. She removed three fist-sized meat rolls from the refrigerator and put them in the microwave. "On the trip."

"What, Cloud?" Barret asked. "Same as usual, I guess."

"And I guess you didn't find anything." The microwave beeped. Tifa removed the rolls, and picked up a pair of beer bottles from the refrigerator with her free hand before bringing them back to the living room.

"Oh, we found _somethin'_." Barret finally sat as she set the rolls down on the coffee table. "Whole load of junk. Jus' don't add up to make no kind of sense, is all."

Tifa had removed the caps from the bottles, and handed Barret one. "So that's it for now? No other leads?"

"It don't look good." A thought occurred to Barret halfway through a swig of his beer. "So Cloud didn't call or nothin'? Say we were comin' back?"

Tifa shook her head. "He never does."

"—Damn!" Barret slammed the bottle down on the table; it made a sharp thud. "What is his problem, anyhow? Like it'd kill him to be a person or somethin'?"

"Force of habit," said Tifa, looking sideways at the broken TV.

Barret blinked. "Eh?"

"You could find a job here, you know."

"...Wha?" Barret asked, shaking his head at the change in topic. "...Ain't no good mines around here."

"You can do other things," Tifa said. "Plenty of demand for bodyguards and the like. Cloud sure keeps busy enough." She shrugged. "And you could actually be Marlene's dad for a while."

Barret shook his head. "I ain't Marlene's dad. I promised I'd take care of her, an' that's what I'm doin'. You keep sayin' how hard it is puttin' all the kids through school, and the mine's good steady money. You don't think I'd be here if there was another way?"

Tifa nodded at the TV. "You know how long that's been broken?"

He didn't, though he remembered seeing it like that before.

"Four years now," said Tifa. "It's been at least two since I tried getting it fixed. But it just sits there, with all the furniture around it like we're gonna catch the news tonight." She sighed. "It's all habit. Don't try too hard, don't stray too far from what you know. Don't get attached. Don't start anything you might not be around to finish." She raised her bottle to take another drink, but stopped and set it down instead. "It's not just the TV. It's not just Cloud, or you. It hits us all in different ways, but everyone's just...waiting. For nothing."

Silence descended on them. Barret took one of the meat rolls, which disappeared into his mouth in one bite. It was getting cold again already.

"It's the kids I feel the worst about," Tifa said. "Maybe we'll manage to die on our own, before the Planet does. Who really thinks that they will?" She shook her head. "Is it worse to live a wasted life, or never to have the chance? And what does it say when that's all there is left?"

Barret hunched over the table, shaking his head as well. Then he tensed, banged his gun-arm on one of the couch's arms. "Dammit!" he said, standing; but even the anger didn't last long. I been all over the Planet lookin' for...shi't, I don't even _know_ what I'm lookin' for." He dropped back into the couch, having already paced himself out. "Savin' the world was a helluva lot easier back when there was somethin' to kill."

"No kidding." Tifa managed a wan smile.


End file.
